


Deke Shaw: The Time Traveling Teenager

by Highclasstrash



Series: Tumblr Prompts by Highclasstrashposts [9]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Agents of SHIELD season 5, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Team as Family, Teenage Deke Shaw, Time Travel, fitzsimmons family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25915423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Highclasstrash/pseuds/Highclasstrash
Summary: Anonymous asked: "maybe a s5 au where instead of deke being all grown up he's more around the age of a teenager? and everyone is super exasperated with him as per usual in s5 but the team takes on a more parental-ish role and when fitzsimmons find out he's their grandson its less skimmed over and more like them taking an active role in being there for him"
Relationships: Deke Shaw & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz & Deke Shaw & Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Series: Tumblr Prompts by Highclasstrashposts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774090
Comments: 11
Kudos: 102





	Deke Shaw: The Time Traveling Teenager

The first thing May felt was the piercing pain in her leg. Wherever she was now, she was in no condition to fight. But she wan't going to tell the man with the glowing helmet that. 

He was good, she would give him that, but she was winning. Until he shoved his belt buckle into her stomach, and she lost all weight. He twisted the front of it, and she flew back and hit a wall. 

The man sighed heavily, leaning against a table not far from her. May watched as the man raised both his arms and took off his helmet, his hair was disheveled and he had a scruffy beard, and he was glaring at her.

"I hate wasting the charge on that thing," he pointed to his belt buckle, and started walking forward. "Honestly, I wasn't trying to hurt you, but you had a lead pipe at the ready, and I can't r-"

May kicked him in the face.

He reeled back, and his glare was back when he looked up. He shoved a cloth in her mouth, pulled her right arm forward, and stabbed her wrist. He inserted a circular plastic thing into her wrist.

"What the hell is this thing?" May yelled at him when he took the belt buckle back. "And who the hell are you?"

The man sighed and rolled up his own right sleeve, showing a matching black device as the one he just put in her. "It's a metric. Everyone needs one, here. Now, where are the others? Because I was paid to give them to all your friends."

May didn't trust this man, who introduced himself as Deke, but she had no choice, he would take her to the rest of the team. Walking beside him to the holding level of what he called the Lighthouse, he looked way younger than she initially thought he was. The angry expression and the beard added a few years. She stopped worrying about his age when they met up with the rest of the team, having bigger things to worry about. Deke had stabbed her, but he also helped get her friends out of a holding cell.

She would tolerate him.

\- - -

Daisy had blown past Deke, ignoring his pleading for her to make a better plan, _to play the long game_ , as he put it. He looked really young when he wasn't yelling at them. But she wan't about to let Simmons suffer under the Kree, she would get her friend back.

Daisy, dropped down from her whole in the ceiling, looking at the much nicer hallways than the rest of the Lighthouse, and started walking in one direction. As she turned a corner, and invisible wall blocked her way, and a white vapor hissed out of the wall and into her air ways.

She watched as a Kree with a fancy coat and white makeup sauntered over to the glass, a familiar man following close behind. 

"I told you she'd find her way down here." Deke Shaw looked straight into Daisys eyes. "And demonstrating her powers, no less."

He called her a weapon of mass destruction, but his eyes were pleading. It made him look younger than her. He had begged her not to do this, maybe he thought he was saving lives by ratting her out, Daisy didn't care.

Daisy coughed, glaring at Deke with all the fire she had in her. "I'll kill you," she promised, "I swear."

He really did look like a kid.

\- - - 

Coulson watched how Dekes face completely changed when he heard the recording of the man from the surface, taking almost ten years away. He recognized that voice. He wouldn't tell Coulson who it was, but he was willing to help them, when he couldn't get far enough away from the S.H.I.E.L.D team when they first got there.

Deke helped Coulson and May get down to level 35, a big help. 

"People don't get pregnant anymore." Deke told them when they were all looking over the baby.

"What do they do -- sterilize the whole population?" Coulson asked as May walked around more.

"We think they do it through the food," Deke glanced down at the baby,   
"so they can decide who has children."

"How long?" Deke didn't seemed phased, but Coulson was horrified. This was a full dystopian vibe.

"They've always tried to control it," Deke turned and started walking throughout the room, "I was one of the last ones born the old-fashioned way. Until Kasias decided that it was easiest to just-"

"Create the children themselves." Coulson finished. "How long ago was that?"

Deke shrugged. "About sev-"

"Phil!" May looked up from a computer screen and stormed over. "I found something."

"What is it?" Coulson asked. May looked angry.

"Him." May glared at Deke, then she swung her fist.

Deke held his nose, which started to bleed. "Okay, ow!"

"May?" Coulson followed May, then saw what made her so angry.

Deke Shaw sold Daisy to Kasius. 

"Okay, well, this is probably the part where I should explain." Deke glanced at the screen, where Daisys face was pictured. 

"No." Coulson shook his head. "This is the part where May breaks your face."

But May did not break his face, he started to explain. Then, two Kree entered, and Deke tried to talk them down, but Coulson hit one of them with a chair.

"Oh!" Deke took a few steps back. "Okay, we're fighting."

Yes, they were fighting. And they were losing, until Deke decided to help and hit one of the Kree over the head with an oxygen tank. The Kree took out a small knife and stabbed Deke.

Coulson wanted to leave him, but the Kree had Jemma, Daisy, and May. And Deke wanted to help them, that counted for something. So he patched the man up.

"Okay." Coulson backed away. "The bleeding's stopped. How's it feel?"

Deke breathed heavily. "It's fine." He was obviously not fine.

"Good. In that case--" Coulson punched Deke, who groaned.

"I really need you people to stop doing that." He stood up and limped to the other side of his room.

Coulson grabbed his arm and spun him around. "Where's Daisy?"

Deke looked like a scared kid. "Look, I had to do that. People have died, and Kasius wouldn't have hesitated to kill hundreds more, and Daisy didn't even seem to care at all!" His eyes were earnest and shining. "So, trust me -- it's safer with her out of the mix."

"I don't trust you!" Coulson shot back. Those reasons did seem valid, but Daisy was like his daughter.

"Well I did what needed to be done." Deke was so convinced of this, like a stubborn teenager.

"Oh, please!" Coulson rolled his eyes. "That wasn't the first time you went for a payday." Deke turned away, and Coulson prodded his chest. "You weren't out to save lives, you made a profit. So don't pretend your motives are pure!"

"There's so much that you don't even know that-" Deke turned to storm away, but Coulson yanked his arm again, making him wince.

"And now you're doing it again, aren't you?" Coulsons words were venomous. "You don't want to help those people on the surface. You want to turn them over to Kasius for-"

"You don't _know_ me, man!" Something in Deke broke, his eyes were shining with something else. "I was _nine_ \-- okay? -- when my mother got _dragged_ away and murdered. Kasius got rid of all the elders, all the smart people, and she was one of them." He was close to tears, he looked so young. "And after she was gone, my dad took up the cause. He carried the torch for her. And as I got older, I begged him not to. I said that they were gonna get him, too," his voice cracked, "and I was right. He got sent to the roaches, just like the rest of them, when I was twelve."

Coulson watched Deke carefully.

"That's why it was pretty strange to hear his voice, after five years."

That one sentence sent Coulsons mind reeling. "That was your father?" Then another realization. "You're seventeen?!"

Deke looked like a scared kid because he was a scared kid, acted like a stubborn teenager because he was one. No wonder he looked so young, he's just a kid. A kid who just wants to see his father again. 

Deke fumbled with his things and pulled out a shiny coin. He held out the coin to Coulson. "Take it. It's what Kasius gave me for Daisy." His eyes shone with tears. "I don't care about it anymore, I just want to help you. I want to see my dad again."

Coulson thought for a minute, just staring at the kid in front of him. He shook his head and started walking towards the door. "No, stay out of this. You're safer if you stay out of this." 

Dekes eyes widened and he ran forward, but the door slammed in his face. He slammed his fist against the metal, yelling to be let out.

"What's the plan with Deke?" Yo-Yo asked as Mack welded Dekes door shut.

"I just grounded him." Coulson looked back at the door. "I punched a seventeen year old kid in the face."

\- - -

Daisy turned away from Fitz and Simmons, and watched a pair of glowing blue eyes appear out of the darkness. She grabs him by his shoulders and slammed him against the large tank in front of her.

"Good thing I'm wearing a helmet." 

Daisy ripped the helmet off of Dekes head and threw it aside. "Are you here to pick up the bounty?"

"No! I'm here to save your ass." Deke tried to step forward, but she pushed him back again.

"I should kill you right now!"

"Who the hell is this guy?" Fitz looked between the two of them.

"He works for Kasius." Daisy kept her hand on his shoulder.

"I don't work for-" Deke stopped himself and addressed Fitz and Simmons. "I mean, sometimes I do, technically. But right now, I'm team S.H.E.I.L.D, alright?" He gave Daisy a fake salute.

"It's convenient, you showing up right now."

"Convenient?" Deke scoffed. "No, it's mindblowing that I managed to escape my room after Coulson grounded me and welded my door shut."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" Daisy shoved him again. "Coulson locking you in your room like some teenager?"

"Well," Deke glanced down at the scientists, "some teenager knows how to get you guys out of here." He picked up his helmet. "Come on."

Daisy and Jemma helped Fitz stand up.

"How old is he?" Jemma whispered to Daisy, who shook her head.

"Seventeen," Deke called back from ahead of them, "now, hurry up!"

\- - -

"Alright, are you ready to take this thing out?" Coulson asked Deke when the whole team made it to the Trawler. Everyone else looked to Deke, who looked at everyone else.

"Me?" Deke pointed to himself. "I'm not a pilot."

"What?" Daisy clenched her fist against the concrete wall. "You don't know how to fly this thing?" _He's_ _just a kid, you_ _can't_ _quake him._

Deke scoffed with a small smile, the first time his expression fit his age. "I never said I did." He jogged up the stairs and climbed the ladder, leaving the rest in the hallway.

Coulson sighed. "I kind of feel bad about punching him." 

"At least you didn't threaten to kill him." Daisy said and grabbed one of the ladder rungs. "And I still might punch him."

"He's a child." Fitz pushed himself off the wall to follow Daisy.

"A child who sold me to Kasius." Daisy started climbing the ladder with a sarcastic smile. Deke was sitting in the cockpit, fiddling with the radio. He didn't look up when Daisy sat heavily in the copilots seat.

"If you want to kill me, can you wait until after we get down to the surface?" Deke turned a knob on the radio, smiling at the static sound.

"Why?" Daisy propped her feet up on the control console in front of her. "You want to breathe real air before you go?"

Deke laughed quietly. "That would be a good bonus, but that's not the reason." He finally looked at her. "My dad's down there."

Daisy didn't say anything to that, just studied Deke. His eyes looked remarkably like Fitzs, all blue and emotional. His beard had grown since she had last seen him, making him look well into his twenties, but if he made the right facial expression, like the melancholy one he wore at that moment, he really did look like the teenager he was. 

"What?" He shifted uncomfortably, winced slightly, and brought one of his hands to rest against his abdomen, around the same spot Fitz had been stabbed.

"Nothing," Daisy shook her head and told herself to stop with the Fitz comparisons, "it's just, you're really young." 

He groaned loudly as Coulson and Fitzsimmons entered the cockpit. "I liked it better when you all thought I was thirty and hated me." He closed the cabinet to the radio and stalked out.

Fitz sighed heavily as Simmons helped him into a chair. "What if we put him in time-out?" He asked. "D'you think he'd go?"

"We have to survive this, first." Coulson turned the key and the Trawler rumbled to life. "So strap yourself in."

They did survive, but the ship crashed. Deke threw them all clothes and goggles to cover themselves with, and pointed out to the howling winds when asked why. "It's brutal out there, with the storms and the roaches. It's why we thought nobody could survive." He told them as he pulled on a pair of gloves.

So the five exited the Trawler and walked to the Zypher, thankfully it wasn't far. May was there to greet them.

"Holy hell," Deke, Fitz, and Simmons all looked up to the small balcony above the cargo hold, where a smiling man stood, "is that Deke Shaw?" The man started descending the staircase to get to him. "I thought I was looking at your old man twenty years ago!"

"Oh, my God, Voss!" Fitz and Simmons watched as Deke hugged Voss, and they could finally see how young he was. For just a moment, his jaded side melted away and he just looked glad.

"May told me you implanted her metric?" Voss asked, and Deke nodded proudly. Voss laughed, "Alya would be so proud of you, you're just like her."

Jemma and Fitz decided to let the two have their moment and look around the Zypher.

"Why'd you bring Deke?" May asked them while Jemma stitched up Daisys cut. 

"We couldn't find a babysitter on such short notice." Fitz said, which made Daisy laugh.

"What?" May looked between all of them, confused.

"He's seventeen," Jemma clarified, "just a kid."

May blinked a few times in surprise. "A seventeen year old has enough medical knowledge to stab through my wrist an not kill me?"

Daisy huffed a laugh and pressed the bandage against her arm, "that seventeen year old kid rebuilt the Framework out of scraps."

Fitzs eyes went wide and his head whipped around to look through a doorway at Deke, fiddling with one of the claws they use to keep the Zypher grounded. "How did he do that?"

Daisy shrugged and stood up. "It doesn't seem dangerous, I've seen it." She took a few steps toward the door, "it's not even realistic. People pay to see one building with fake beer." And then she left the room.

Jemma sighed and started packing up her medical supplies. "He's a genius." She glanced up at the others in the room. "Maybe a little annoying, but a genius."

After Voss' people attacked, and Robin was dead, Coulson looked around at his team. Someone was missing. 

"Where's Deke?" Coulson met Daisys eyes. Something like panic flashed across her face, and she twisted Voss' arm a little farther behind his back

Voss hissed in pain. "Relax, he's fine." He yelled through his pain. "He figured us out first, he's in the back." Daisy started walking him out, and Voss laughed bitterly. "That kid's too smart, it'll get him killed, the same way it killed his mom."

After locking Voss away with the rest of his people, Daisy started looking for Deke. She turned a corner and saw him sitting on a desk. She picked up her pace when she saw the blood matting his hair and dripping down his ear and neck. He looked up when he heard the keys to the padlock jingle in her hand.

"I thought you'd be dead." Daisy pulled the door open.

Deke didn't stand up, he just looked back down at the floor. "Yeah," he looked so small at that moment, "I guess Voss didn't want any more of my family's blood on his hands."

"You're dad . . ." Daisy closed her eyes. This kid would never see his father again. He's an orphan. "Deke, I'm s-- I'm so sorry."

Deke finally stood up, which looked like it took too much effort. "I just hope Robin can help you find your answers." His eyes, which were always so expressive, looked red and empty. The tracks down his face told her that he'd been crying. Daisy put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly.

"That doesn't look so good." Daisy gently turned his head to look at his head wound. "Let's go get you checked out." 

As the two started walking, Daisy was thinking. She couldn't stay mad at Deke. He was a scared kid doing what he thought was right, and she can't blame anyone for doing that.

In the short amount of time they had known Deke, the S.H.I.E.L.D team had grown somewhat fond of him. They would never admit it, but they liked the kid. So, when Enoch says he has twelve minutes before the Kree capture him, and Deke volunteers to secure the time machine, Daisy says she'll come with.

"I'll come, it'll be better if we take the plane together." She walks to his side.

"Yeah, no duh." Deke blocks her path. "But none of the time travelers can go because you all need to be at the rendezvous when it's turned on, so do the math."

The three adults all understand what he's trying to say, and they don't like it.

"Deke, it's a suicide mission, you can't." May says.

"You're just a kid," Coulson steps forward, "and you still have your whole life-"

Deke shook his head with a scoff. "No, nobody who grows up in this place is a kid." He tells them, taking a few more steps backward. "Tess has _died_ , Flint's building your magic time travel rock. You guys gave me a gun and let me decide what to do with Voss. None of us are kids." He sighed and glanced behind him. "And besides-- what are you going to do? Lock me in my room?"

He turned around and started walking back to the Zypher.

"Be careful!" Daisy yelled after him.

"You're a pain in my ass!" Deke shouted back.

\- - - 

Somehow, through some means, Deke made it to 2018 with the rest of the team. As soon as Daisy saw his mugshot pop up on the giant screen, relief flooded her veins. He didn't die with Enoch. She jumped into action.

The fresh air is heaven to her. The first time she's breathed it in in weeks and it's amazing. 

"That's my little brother." Daisy says to the cops in the small town of Rivers End, the ones who arrested the kid they brought back from the future. 

Deke stood up, smiling when he saw her through the holding cell. That was the first time Daisy had seen a real smile on him.

"Are you okay?" Daisy asked as soon as they were out on the street. "How are you here?"

"I'm great!" Deke was still smiling and he was practically _skipping_ beside her. "I was powering up the time machine, and right before it exploded, the rock kind of melted, and then I ended up here."

"So the first thing you do is commit a crime?" Daisy raised an eyebrow and indicated an alleyway to walk down. 

"In my defense," Deke held the door to the Lighthouse tunnel for Daisy to walk through, "I didn't know you payed for things with paper money in 2018."

"I'm not talking about that." Daisy shook her head. "You're only seventeen. You have to be twenty-one to legally drink alcohol in the United States." She glanced back and saw his surprise. "You're lucky the beard makes you look my age or they would have charged you with underage drinking."

Deke didn't say anything to that, except: "Wow . . . "

Daisy hummed in agreement. "Hey, speaking of your beard," she pointed to a door that lead to the control room, "are you going to shave it?"

Deke gave her a weird look and stopped just before entering the room. "Why?"

Daisy shrugged and sat down on the spinning chair. "I don't know. So you can look your age, maybe?"

The next time things were relatively calm, Deke walked into the control, but didn't say anything for a while.

"What is it?" Fitz asked, not looking away from his screen. Deke opened his mouth, closed it, then ran a hand down his face, through his beard that had grown scruffier, if possible. "Deke?"

"Can you teach me how to shave?" The kid blurted out.

Fitz stopped what he was doing and turned around. "What?"

"Never mind." Deke said quickly, his face going slightly red. "It's stupid, forget about it."

"It's not stupid." Fitz stood up and reassured, which stopped Deke in his tracks. "I'm just surprised, is all. Nobody taught you in the future?"

"No," Deke shook his head, "it's usually a dad thing, right?"

Fitz winced. "I'm sorry. Just give me a minute to finish up and then I'll be free."

"So it's that simple?" Deke was sitting in front of a mirror, a can of shaving cream and a razor in front of him.

"Basically." Fitz nodded. "Just be careful around your neck, it's easy to cut yourself while shaving."

"Thank you," Deke smiled nervously, "this is probably really weird."

Fitz shook his head. "No, I get it." He watched the teenager carefully drag the razor down his jaw. "My dad wasn't around to teach me how to shave, either."

"I'm sorry." Deke stopped and glanced back. "Who taught you, then?"

Fitz laughed and leaned against the wall behind him, "My mum did."

"Wait-- girls shave?" Deke furrowed his brow. 

"Yeah," Fitz laughed again at his surprise, "some of them do." At the confused look, he clarified. "Their legs."

"Oh-- ow!" Deke dropped the razor and leaned closer to the mirror, watching a bead of blood run down his jaw. Fitz sprung forward and grabbed a wash cloth.

"How bad is it?" Fitz asked, trying to get a look.

"Not very." Deke took the cloth and pressed it to his face. "Faces bleed a lot for minor things, right?"

Fitz nodded. "Yeah. You're almost done, do you want to finish?" He handed over a small adhesive bandage.

Deke covered the cut with the Band-Aid and picked up the razor again. "I'm guessing this gets easier the more you do it?"

"Yes, it does." Fitz wiped his hands on a towel then handed it to Deke when he finished shaving. He clapped his hand on his shoulder. "Congratulations, you're a man now." He joked.

Deke rolled his eyes with a smile. He looked at himself in a mirror, he finally saw what the others did when they called him _kid_.

\- - -

_"NO!"_

Jemma froze mid-step in the empty hallway. That was Deke. There was a crash, and Jemma took off running. She halted at a doorway to a storage room just in time to watch Deke stab a Kree soldier. She ran to him as the Kree crumbled to dust.

"Are you okay?" Jemma put her hand on his shoulder and guided him to sit on the floor. He fell heavily, staring at a spot just behind her. "What was it?"

"My . . . my mom." Dekes voice was hoarse. "I knew she wasn't real, but I couldn't . . ." he dropped his knife. "Then the Kreeper just--" he coughed and looked away.

Jemma rubbed his arm comfortingly and sat down across from him on the floor. "I'm sorry, Deke. You shouldn't have had to see that."

Deke sniffed and braced his hands on the ground to get up, but stopped and looked at his bicep. "They're not real, how did it hit me?"

Jemma jumped into action, helping him up and having him take off his jacket. She ushered him to medical and inspected the deep gash on his arm. She took out a needle and spool of thread and started stitching the cut closed. 

"I really thought I was done getting choked up about things," Deke said absently while the scientist worked, "I guess I was wrong."

"Well," Jemma didn't look away from her task, "your life has changed very drastically in a very short amount of time. I wouldn't be surprised if you have mixed emotions."

Deke sighed in frustration and ran his right hand through his hair, showing off the bloody bandage that has been wrapped around his wrist since he took out the metric. "But everything in the past is so much better." He stared at the wall in front of him. "I just-- I don't know what's going on with me."

"You'll figure it out." Jemma smiled encouragingly as she wrapped his stitched arm with a bandage and then went to change the one on his wrist. "The steps you take don't have to be big, they just have to take you in the right direction." The words she had said so many times to so many people rolled off her tongue so easily, but Deke sat frozen on the cot, his eyes wide. "Are you okay?"

Deke suddenly stood. "I'm good now, thanks," he took a step toward the door, "I should probably go get my ja--"

"I'll get it." Jemma gently pushed him back down on the cot. "Just sit there and rest. You don't need to risk hurting yourself more."

Jemma felt his eyes on her back as she walked out, but paid it no mind. She entered the storage room she had found him in, the only evidence they were there being the leather jacket on the floor next to an open box. She picked up the jacket, smoothed it over her arm, and turned to leave. But something on the floor glinted and caught her eye. It was the knife Deke had used to stab the Kree and cut open the tape on the open box. Jemma bent down to pick it up, and she recognized it. The number _17_ was carved into the side of the multi tool, just the same as Fitz did. _This belongs to Fitz._

"Deke?" Jemma walked back into the med bay and stopped in front of him, taken off track before she even started. "I just noticed, I'm sorry, but you _shaved?_ "

He felt his jaw and nodded, looking nervous. "Fitz taught me."

"Speaking of Fitz--" Jemma set the jacket down and held out the multi took, "why do you have Fitzs knife?"

Deke stopped looking nervous and a confused expression took over. "What?" He picked up the knife and examined it. "No, this is mine. My grandfather gave this to me when I was a kid. See-- it's got a little seventeen on it." He pointed to the number.

That made Jemma even more confused. "This is . . . this is Fitzs, I swear . . ."

Dekes eyes widened again. "Oh, my God." He muttered.

Jemma looked up at him again. "What is it?"

"This is going to sound really crazy," Deke warned, "but . . . when I was a kid, my mom would always tell me that thing you said earlier. You know, _the steps you take don't have to be big ._ . ."

"They just have to take you in the right direction." Jemma finished for him. He nodded wildly and pointed at her.

"Right! She said she learned it from her mom, who also taught her a bunch of basic medical procedures, which she taught me-"

"You put Mays metric in without the device everyone else used." Jemma caught on to his thought process. "And your grandfather gave you Fitzs multi tool . . ."

Deke smiled nervously, "I think, I think I'm . . ."

"You're our grandson." Jemma finished for him, and he nodded. She stared at him, really looked at him for a while. Freshly shaved, he looked so much like Fitz when they had first joined the team in the field. She jumped up suddenly and ran to the other side of the room, pulling three test tubes out of a cabinet. She placed it in Dekes hand. "Spit in there, I'm going to get Fitz."

She had run out before he could answer.

"Fitz!" Jemma burst into Control and grabbed her husbands hand. "Come with me, it's important." 

"Jemma, what--?" Fitz tried, but was cut off as he was dragged away.

"Not now, just follow." Jemma held one of the test tubes out to him. "Do you have your multi tool?"

"Yeah, why?" Fitz held the glass tube in his hand and picked up his pace when he realized they were on their way to the med bay.

Deke was sitting gingerly on one of the cots, holding an empty test tube of his own.

"Deke, I told you to spit in it." Jemma said, then turned to Fitz. "You, too. Spit."

"Why do we have to spit into a--?"

"I'm doing a DNA test." Jemma answered quickly, hauling out an old microscope from a cabinet and setting it on a lab counter. "So spit in the tube."

Fitz turned to Deke, a questioning look on his face that was answered with a single sentence.

"I think I'm your grandson." 

Fitz turned away, utterly baffled. But he complied and spit into his vile, then gave it over to Simmons.

"This might take a while," she told the boys, "the technology is old."

Fitz turned to look at Deke. "How are we your grandparents?" He couldn't really comprehend the concept, but he had to try.

"My mom is your daughter, I think." Deke flushed nervously, then dug around in his pocket, pulling out an old metal knife. "My grandfather gave this to me when I was younger." 

Fitz furrowed his brow in confusion and dug around his own pockets. He felt the multi tool Jemma asked about, and he took it out. It was exactly like the one Deke was holding, just newer. They both even had the same number scratched into the side.

Minutes passed, with Jemma staring down at the three DNA comparisons the whole time while Fitz asked Deke questions. 

"It's true." Jemma said suddenly, quietly, but it made both men go silent. She looked at the two of them from the other side of the room. "Deke Shaw is our grandson."

The three of them all sat in silence for minutes. Then, Jemma stood up and walked over to them and hugged them both.

"Should we tell the others?" Fitz looked to Deke for the answer.

"Why are you asking me?" Deke tried for a joke. "You're the adults, here."

\- - -

"Woah," Daisy smiled when Deke walked into the room with the rest of the team, what had become the makeshift dining area, "guys, doesn't he look like Fitz when he got out the academy!" Everyone chuckled at that. 

"Fitz used to shave?" Elena asked with a smile, fiddling with her new prosthetic.

"Fitz _taught_ me how to shave." Deke grinned and sat down to serve himself some food.

Coulson hummed and pointed to the small Band-Aid on the teenagers jaw. "Fitz is rusty, he'd probably do worse the next time he tries."

Even May smiled at that remark. The team fell into small chatter in small groups.

"Now that I think about it," Mack said when there was a lull in conversation, "Deke's a lot a like Fitz."

The team all made noncommittal noised of agreement, while Deke smiled nervously. 

"You look exactly like Fitz, but with straight hair." Elena pointed to his hair while, unnoticed by everyone, Fitz and Simmons stopped in one of the entrances to the room.

"The weird little inventions." Coulson pointed out. "Fitzsimmons invented the ICERs we use all the time."

Daisy snapped her fingers and pointed to the ceiling. "You both stand in that weird way!" She smiled excitedly and stood up, trying to imitate the pose, making everyone laugh again.

Deke looked helplessly at Fitzsimmons with a shrug and a shake of his head. 

"I think we should save him." Simmons turned to her husband and whispered.

Fitz smiled back at her. "I think we should wait a little bit, see what he does."

Jemma playfully smacked his arm and walked forward, into the room. "Stop harassing him."

"He's Fitz with Simmons' hair!" Daisy pointed between the three. "I figured it out."

"Deke, you're their son." Elena joked. 

Deke looked to Jemma and Fitz, who glanced at each other before shrugging and nodding.

"Grandson, actually." The whole team laughed it off, thinking it was part of the joke. But, upon seeing the serious expressions on their faces, they stopped.

"Wait, seriously?" May looked between the three of them. "We brought your _grandson_ back from the future?"

"All of you, line up next to each other." Mack said.

"I did a DNA test," Jemma told them, "it's true."

"No way." Coulson smiled wide. "You two skipped regular children and started with the grandchild!"

"Was this a coincidence or did you know the whole time?" Elena asked at the same time.

"It was a complete coincidence, we just did the test-- wait-!" Fitz tried to explain, but couldn't get much further, for Daisy pulled him and his wife into a tight embrace. 

When she let go, she ran to the other side of the room, to Deke, and gave him a hug of his own. "You're actually family, now!" She let go and held him at arms length. "That actually makes so much sense, you being related to them."

"It does?" Deke shifted awkwardly.

"You and Fitz are both so . . ." she looked at Fitz with a joking expression. ". . . special."

That was what broke everyone. The eight of them all laughed, though some more than others. Piper and Davis stuck their heads into the room.

"What's happening?" Piper asked. Coulson explained with one single sentence.

"The kid we adopted is actually Fitzsimmons' grandson from the future."


End file.
